The Chronicles of Bree: Descent into Madness / Field104, 401
Prologue
The night air carries with it the gentle scents of jasmine and lavender and the stars hang low and bright in the sky twinkling above me - a constant in an ever-changing world. I am urged now to write this account of my life, of my death, and of my rebirth. Why, may you ask? What have I to tell you, my eager readers? What jewels of wisdom can I offer? All I have is the account of my life and what I have learned about humanity these past 600 years.
My name is Bree, and I am a vampire. I feed off the living and I live among the undead children I have created. This is my story - my tale - my legacy. Like it, hopefully you will. Enjoy it, you will. Learn from it, you must. This is the legacy that I leave, believe it or don’t, it matters very little to me. Think me a fictional character if it helps you sleep at night. Lock your windows and your doors. Wear your crucifixes and fill your vials with holy water, it will not help. The cool night air may just bring my kind your way and there is no protecting yourself.
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Chapter One
Like all great tales told throughout time, my story needs to be told where it begins… in the beginning.
There I stood on that cold morning, glaring at the colossal oak door of the convent; it’s golden adornments of Saint’s Peter and Paul showing me the way into the mystery of cloistered life. I was only sixteen. In this day and age I would’ve been considered a fledging, not yet ready to depart from my family, but because of the times and the hardships that spread across the land like wildfires consuming everything they touched, I had been forced to mature beyond my juvenile youth. I had been forced to make a decision no child would’ve ever been forced to make nowadays.
Droplets of icy rainfall had been falling delicately on my face that day, masking the tears of mixed joy and apprehension that were gracing my rosy cheeks. But even as the rain fell, the sky looked as if it were on fire with the Holy Spirit as the sun began to slip away, disappearing behind the solemn pine trees which lined the cobble stone path that led to the convent’s outer gate.
I remember my cape dragging on the mud-laden path; the extravagant hem near ruin with caked mud. My Sunday dress, with its midnight-blue velvet skirting, nearly soaked with rain and the periwinkle bodice tightly bound to my blossoming bosom. My golden curls were casually falling out of the loose bun my nursemaid had placed them in earlier that morning. They too were wet… my golden curls; soaked and saturated with icy aqua droplets. They drooped from the weight of the rain, heavy and cumbersome - like my convictions.
I had journeyed to Our Lady of the Woods convent to begin my religious life as a postulant, surrendering my life to the Lord. I had felt the calling from a young age but had chosen to ignore it. It had been beneath my station. There had been better things in store for me. But now, all that had changed. I could no longer keep quiet the voice that called to me in the night. It was his voice – the voice of God. My vocation was to live as a symbol of an undivided union in the Church as Bride to the Lord.
I longed to fix my cobalt eyes upon the Lord and all that was holy and just! I wanted to become one with Christ and become a living memory of the Church’s spousal love and all my dreams were about to become reality. All I had to do was knock upon the door. I had traveled with only a few meager processions; my satchel contained only enough money to aid me on my journey and a picture of my beloved family held in a tiny gilded gold frame. I hid the frame in my bodice so it would not be seized from my person when I entered the convent to live for the remainder of my life as a Bride of Christ. With this, I went forth through the first gate and approached the enclosure door.
I lightly tapped upon the door signaling that I wished to enter the convent and begin life as a postulant in Christ, to be bound forever to Him in love. After a few minutes spent in reflective silence, a plump woman, clad in a brown and black habit, answered my knocking. She stood there somber yet radiating with a deep love that emanated from her creating a sense of peace and hope.
“What is it that your heart desires, my child?” she asked.
“I desire to begin the time of discernment,” I answered.
I had already known the words that would allow me to gain entrance into the cloister for my nursemaid had informed me of the procedure before I had left. The words came forth and flowed from my mouth as smoothly as silk.
After a few glances up and down my person the Mother Abbess responded with all the love of Christ’s joy.
“Enter into the joy of the Lord and may you bee with us always,” she said smiling cheerfully.
I was then welcomed into the chapel by the Community and accepted into the fold without question or hesitation. In these times, the years plagued by the Black Death, the Holy Catholic Church could use all the able bodies and minds willing to help care for the infirmed and so, I was joyfully accepted
. It was in the chapel where I received my postulant veil and a medal depicting the image of St. Francis; the metal linking me to this specific order of Franciscan nuns. I felt the love of Christ surround me as I was welcomed into His family, and so began a new chapter in my life.
My first year living with the nuns, concealed with Christ in God, was a time of spiritual growth and earthly lamenting. I learned the monastic lifestyle and the tight schedule the religious adhered to. I was not accustomed to rising before the sun and I pursued to meet each morning with a groan as a way to protest the custom. My protests were useless of course; the nuns never gave in to my whining.
Every morning I was awoken at 5:30 a.m. and was expected to take part in morning prayers. Of course, one of my charges was to put out the necessary items for Mother Superior to use during the day and all of this was to be accomplished before the morning prayers. Needless to say, I would more often than not go about this chore half asleep fighting my droopy eyelids just trying to stay awake. It took a few months to grow accustomed to waking before the blessed sun and many mornings I had been nudged awake as I drifted in and out of sleep during ‘amens.’
Meal times were another frustration I had to grow to love. Spoiled in my former life, I had been accustomed to having my breakfast served shortly after waking or when I rang for it. It was a scandalous shock to learn that breakfast was served three hours after waking. So, for over six months, until I grew accustomed to the late breakfast hour, my stomach would groan in protest.
The rest of my days were spent tending to my other charges of working the garden, cleaning, assisting with the ailing and dying, and giving thanks to God through prayer and reverent silence.
There was one day, about a month before the one-year anniversary of my taking the postulant vows when Mother Superior had knelt by my side while I scrubbed feircely at the soiled chapel floor. An appearance of love and peaceful grace shrouded her face and I felt the love of Christ radiate from her just as rays of precious golden light radiate from the sun.
She had placed her firm hand on my shoulder; it was heavy with wisdom yet softened with her many acts of tender compassion. “I need to speak with you during your free hour. I will be waiting in my office. Pray, my child, pray for discernment in times to come.”
I continued to scrub the marble floor not revealing that I noticed her departing the chapel; her long, earthy-brown habit swishing against the stone floor as she moved from my sight. Sweat beaded my forehead and my hands were aching from gripping the dripping mop-rag. I made haste, finishing the floor and then filled the baptismal font with the sacred Holy Water Father Shannon had blessed earlier that morning. I dusted the worn pews in which we professed our daily adoration and then quietly made for Mother Superior’s inner office.
Postulant Olivia met me at the door to the outer chamber and handed into my possession a folded yellow paper.
“Mother wishes for you to read this letter before entering the inner office.” Her eyes were filled with curiosity. She knew all to well that she was my only confidant and that I would confess every detail as soon as I had the chance.
“Thank you Olivia, you must go now. Finish you duties and we will speak of this when we are allowed our free hour. Meet me under the weeping willow in the courtyard.”
She flashed me a wicked smile; not the type of smile one would expect from a future Bride of Christ, but nonetheless, a smile that was all her own.
I made for a darkly stained chair in the corner of the room so that I could read the letter.
All these thoughts were racing their way through my adolescent mind. Had I offended Mother Superior? Was there distressing news about my family?
To my astonishment the letter contained only one simple command, one tiny yet coded request. Penned in black ink and smudged in several places it read for my eyes only, “Lay prostrate on this floor, under the image of our Christ, and pray for His divine guidance.”
What could I have done? What could I have said? The questions flooded my mind as I prostrated my self before the image of the Savior. I laid there in silent prayer and remembrance for what seemed like an eternity. I arose only after being filled with passionate peace and immaculate love, the tears rolling uncontrollably down my cheeks. It was then, after she heard my muffled sobbing that she came for me from her inner office and placed her steady hand on my humble shoulder once more as she helped me from the floor. I was guided into her office and seated on a chair of golden velvet and handed an unadorned white handkerchief to blot my tear stricken eyes.
She moved quickly, seating herself at a meager oak desk, before I could scan the room in which I now sat. Never before had I been given the privilege of seeing her inner office and I felt unworthy. She seemed rather demure compared to the colossal wooden crucifix that graced the eggshell colored wall behind her. A painting of the Pope adorned the far left wall and on the right, a painting of St. Francis of Assisi.
“Postulant Annice, your time has come. The year of your postulancy is soon ending. Do you plan on continuing your journey to the altar of the Bridegroom or do you intend on returning to the external world? I do hope that this decision has weighted heavily on your heart this past year and that the answer for which you are asked to give is the calling that Our Lord has destined for you,” she stated.
I sat stunned. It had never occurred to me that my postulant year was soon to be ending.
Where had the time gone? I was now so accustomed to the religious life that I would’ve sworn it had always been so. But now I was being offered a choice to continue with Him and be forever bound to His Love or to leave this place of quiet reflection and eternal peace for a world of uncertainty and earthly pleasures.
“Must I give my answer at this hour, Mother Superior?" My head hung low with shame. How could I doubt my calling? What could she be thinking of my intentions? I couldn’t look her in the eyes; the eyes that radiated with circumspection.
Her voice came and fell on me as she reached for my quivering hand, “Do not fear your true calling, my child. Make haste to your cell and rest there for the night undisturbed. Consider the question you are being faced with. Weight it heavily on your mind and pray for His divine love and guidance in this matter. He will show you the path you must take.”
She showed me to the door giving me a reassuring hug. In her own way, I knew she was letting me know she had been there too, a long time ago, and that she too knew the heavy burden that now lay at my feet.
I paced in my cell that night, unable to sleep and full of questions and uncertainty. I had indeed felt the calling to continue my life as Christ’s bride but I doubted His intentions. Who was I though to doubt the Lord’s intentions for my life? Only He could know the path on which I was to travel. Only He knew my true destiny and potential.
So with unshaken uncertainty, I laid it all at His feet as I had been taught to do. All my worries and personal ambitions lay prostrate at His holy feet. I layed on the floor in my immaculate cell where I, as a future bride of the Incarnate Word, lived wholly transfixed with Christ in God, pleading for certainty of His plans for my life.
Finally, being tugged by Him until utter exhaustion had set its claws into me, I conceded. I conceded to the vocation that he had placed the yearning for so hungrily in my heart and soul.
As I drifted off into a tranquil slumber, I prayed a silent prayer and let it pour from my heart like a river flowing out to sea, Lord, I give thee thanks for the fire you have placed in my simple heart. I promise to be unto you an honorable bride. Lord, I pray that you release me from the anxieties I feel.
Night came shortly there after and I fell into a peaceful sleep where nothing in the mortal world could harm me and my soul was finally at rest.
It was during the first free hour the next day, as I knelt with Olivia by our weeping willow recounting my tale to her eager ears, that Sister Mary Martha came from across the courtyard calling for me to accompany her to Mother Superior’s office, yet again. Sr. Mary Martha had her usual stern and unappealing countenance gracing her hardened face which only gave the other nuns in the courtyard an impression that I was in some kind of misfortunate mess. I saw them snickering as I ran through the courtyard.
Arriving in the outer chamber of the Mother’s office, I panted with breathlessness from the strenuous running. My lungs felt as if they were going to explode. Running like that was something I hadn’t done since early childhood. Beads of sweat poured down my face and I attempted to blot them away with the sleeve from my black habit. Sr. Mary Martha eyed my demeanor with a scornful look. I often wondered if she had read in the Bible where Jesus said to “love thy neighbor.” Olivia often said that Sr. Mary Martha’s motto was spare the rod and spoil the child. Olivia, unfortunately, had been given the metaphorical “rod” many times since beginning her postulancy.
Sr. Mary Martha entered Mother’s inner office leaving me for a few minutes so that I may pray for His guidance. I was about to be asked a difficult question for many to answer but I was more than willing to give the response Mother Superior wished to hear. Yet, I prayed anyway. Only this time I did not lay myself prostrate on the hard floor but chose a simple wooden chair near the statue of the Savior Child.
Lord, I too was once a tiny lamb in your flock. I prayed silenty to myself so that the listening ears would not hear the tender words that were meant only for His loving ears. You know, Lord, I continued, that I have not always been a good lamb. But, now I have found a deeper relationship with you here in this blessed place among your brides. I have begun a new and marvelous union with your spirit. Lord, I wish to continue this journey into your most loving arms. I wish to always be one with you and to no longer want the things that this Earth offers.
When I opened my teary eyes there she stood, Mother Superior, as peaceful as any white dove in one of the many interpretative paintings of the Holy Spirit I had been blessed to see in my young lifetime.
“Come with me, my little one.” She reached out for my hand and I received hers with excitement.
Her sturdy grasp escorted me in and offered me a seat next to a tall maple bookcase filled with books on church doctrine and the lives of the Saints. Sr. Mary Martha was then politely asked to leave and she did so, but with a grimace on her face.
Mother Superior’s face was filled with so much radiating love that she reminded me of the Virgin Mary; so full of God’s grace she was. She began to speak as she sat down behind her massive desk, “Have you prayed?”